Judging Your Own Speed

[Dan Huben]

Yesterday I played a flex match with a guy that was better than me. He had more shots, and better command of the court, but he was complimentary on my game. He inferred during the match that he could tell my arm was warming up since my serves had upped in pace. I thought he was "sharking" me at the time (pool hall lingo- false compliments to have you focus on something you're already doing well, to throw you off). But after the match he was as complimentary.

We discussed that I haven't been playing all that long and was interested in his feed back. I did have a lot of mishits, he hit harder than most of the people I play against, and though I got to the ball, I was more interested in seeing were the ball could go, instead of seeing it to contact. My perception of my own hits are about the same of the mishits, I think I am hitting weakly, and think I am over swinging because it looks like my shots are slow rather than playing within myself and keeping the rally going. My opponent thought I had plenty of pace on my ball. Incoming just looks faster than outgoing I guess.

During the match I can't feel it though, and can't tell if a rally ball is heated or not. I can tell the difference sometimes between a rip or a floater, but not a driven rally. My balls tend to land outside the service box, but there doesn't seem to be a differentiation between slow gear and fast gear for overall distance. Maybe the faster swing is putting more spin instead of pace? I can tell the difference in flat shots, but flat shots aren't hit with the same violence I can throw into a spinner.

I tried doing an internal "Ball-Bounce-Hit" for both of our shots so I could judge the relative timing difference between his and my shots, but got lost in the point as I still have to think through a lot of the game play.

Anyway, long diatribe to get to the question, does anyone else have difficulty judging their own effort, or am i really that uncoordinated?

Thanks in advance

 

[Traffic]

Yesterday I played a flex match with a guy that was better than me. He had more shots, and better command of the court, but he was complimentary on my game. He inferred during the match that he could tell my arm was warming up since my serves had upped in pace. I thought he was "sharking" me at the time (pool hall lingo- false compliments to have you focus on something you're already doing well, to throw you off). But after the match he was as complimentary.

We discussed that I haven't been playing all that long and was interested in his feed back. I did have a lot of mishits, he hit harder than most of the people I play against, and though I got to the ball, I was more interested in seeing were the ball could go, instead of seeing it to contact. My perception of my own hits are about the same of the mishits, I think I am hitting weakly, and think I am over swinging because it looks like my shots are slow rather than playing within myself and keeping the rally going. My opponent thought I had plenty of pace on my ball. Incoming just looks faster than outgoing I guess.

During the match I can't feel it though, and can't tell if a rally ball is heated or not. I can tell the difference sometimes between a rip or a floater, but not a driven rally. My balls tend to land outside the service box, but there doesn't seem to be a differentiation between slow gear and fast gear for overall distance. Maybe the faster swing is putting more spin instead of pace? I can tell the difference in flat shots, but flat shots aren't hit with the same violence I can throw into a spinner.

I tried doing an internal "Ball-Bounce-Hit" for both of our shots so I could judge the relative timing difference between his and my shots, but got lost in the point as I still have to think through a lot of the game play.

Anyway, long diatribe to get to the question, does anyone else have difficulty judging their own effort, or am i really that uncoordinated?

Thanks in advance

I thought I hit good pace balls. Then a club-mate of mine that I play with said, "you don't have much pace on your ball, but they are placed well with a lot of spin". LOL

So I don't concentrate so much on my pace. But rather how I am seeing opponent's pace. During the spring, I started practicing with higher level players. It was challenging at first to adjust to their pace. But after practicing together, their balls seemed to "slow down". Same with their serves. I don't think I can add pace to the ball like my opponents. But my pace rises up to theirs as I use their pace for my returns.